An Emotionally Historic Election — The Weekly reFRESH

June 10, 2016

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Photo via @lauraolinEdited by Mara Meyers

This week we’re thinking through alternative ways to achieve justice outside of our (broken) political justice system, the potential for a “universal basic income,” and grappling with the emotions of this historic election cycle.

What we’ve been checking out…

If you haven’t already read the letter that the Stanford sexual assault victim wrote to her attacker, Brock Turner, you must. It’s an important, haunting, vulnerable, and brave account that society needed to hear.

Hillary Clinton is the official democratic nominee making her an official lady-boss-barrier-breaking-badass history maker. But for those who grew up with women in politics as the norm, we must remember the emotional historic context for this win.

It has taken almost exactly a century since white women got the right to vote to have a white woman represent a major party nominee for president. Brittney Cooper explains why this matters and why she’s a radical Black feminist who’s voting for Hillary.

We should stop expecting a broken criminal justice system to provide survivors of sexual assault justice. Instead, Julie Zeilinger believes we can give survivors choices for restorative justice and trust they’ll make the right decisions for themselves.